Upgrade Memory, Yellow sections on Macbook Pro (15 inch, Mid 2010)

Upgrade Memory, Yellow sections on Macbook Pro (15 inch, Mid 2010)

I have a 15 inch mid 2010 Macbook Pro, 2.4 Ghz Intel Core i5. I ran the Crucial System Scanner. Ordered and installed Part # CT3309362. Macbook Pro recognizes the 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, but portions of the screen on the Mac are yellow. For example, every other line of the Activity Monitor is yellow. A blank Text document page is yellow.

Reinstalled original 4GB memory. Screen display was normal. Returned and reinstalled replacement memory. Screen displayed yellow areas for a minute and then turned normal. A week later the screen suddenly displayed the same yellow areas. I reset the computer's PRAM...still yellow areas. An external monitor's display in normal. The MacBook Pro recognizes and uses the 8 GB memory. The memory upgrade is great except for the yellow which makes view the MaBook's screen difficult.

I did a screen capture of the screen displayed on the MacBook Pro with yellow sections. When I drag it onto an external montior, the screen capture turns normal (yellow sections disappear) as it becomes viewable on the external.

First of all I'm sorry to hear that you are having problems with your memory upgrade.

I have had a look at this issue for you and it sounds as if it's possibly an issue with a driver or an EFI firmware update. Have you checked to see if you have the most up to date EFI firmware for your MacBook Pro system?

If memory is faulty in an Apple system then it generally has Kernal Panics and shuts down, it does not usually change the white balance on your screen. I would recommend checking the drivers on the Apple website and see if that resolves the issue. We are more than happy to arrange an exchange if there is a problem with the memory however I don't think that's what is happening here.

If you do want to arrange an exchange please contact our customer service team directly HERE and they can do that for you.

I have looked over this information and what I can say is that this problem is definitely not down to faulty memory. Faulty memory in a Mac system would cause it to crash or errors to appear.

What seems to be happening here is that your system is having problems dealing with the extra memory being installed which means it would happen with any 8GB upgrade you install in the system. When something like this happens it could be down to the power management settings in the system which is reducing the screen resolution or colors due to the amount o power in use.

Do you run this MacBook Pro from battery mostly or when it's plugged in via the mains?

Is the external monitor always connected to the system? This on it's own can also use power from your system which could show why the power management features are changing. I would also recommend checking your resolution and power settings to see if you can change them about to resolve the issues you are having.

We are more than happy to arrange a refund for you if the memory was ordered in the last 45 days just use the link in my last reply. I believe that this is a system power issue or an issue with the system coping with 8GB of memory so it would happen each time 8GB is installed.

I mostly run it plugged into to an outlet. It makes no difference whether I have the MBP connected to the external monitor or not.

So I removed the Crucial memory and this time the MBP display had the color problem. To review, I installed the first 8 GB kit and the display had the yellow problem I have mention above. I removed this 8GB kit and reinstalled the original Apple 4GB., and the MBP display was back to normal. Received the replacement 8 GB from Crucial, and for a minute the yellow display problem was there, but then went away. So the second 8GB Crucial Memory Kit was fine. A week later, the MBP display reverted to the yellow display problem (second 8GB memory kit installed). I removed one 4GB module, the MBP yellow display problem was still there. Replaced all the Crucial memory with the 4 GB original Apple memory and, this time, the yellow display problem remained.

After reading through and trying your suggestions, I checked the color calibration and selected a different profile. Not great, but the yellow color was gone. I reinstalled the 8GB Crucial Kit. Color look OK...yellow gone. I played around with the Apple Colorsyn and created a new profile which looks fine....not identical to my external display...but the MBP display probably never was.

It seems that the MBP display is going in and out of calibration. Or needs a new color profile. I don't understand why the memory changes would cause this....but I believe I can fix it if it happens again.

Thanks for your help and suggestions. I really appreciate you taking the time.

It does look like your MacBook Pro does change the display settings when a higher amount of memory is installed. It's possibly down to the slightly extra power the system needs with new memory installed.

Thanks once again for posting your findings as this could certainly help another user if they have a similar problem to your own.

If you have any questions at all or need anything please don't hesitate to contact us and we would be happy to help.